Inside Athletics

Sarwinski Reminisces About Summer in Hong Kong

Oct 16, 2012

As a senior captain of the back-to-back-to-back NEWMAC
tournament champion softball team, you might expect that a typical
summer would be riddled with a painstaking amount of grounders and
soft-toss in order to secure their fourth consecutive conference
title. However, like most cadets here at the Coast Guard Academy,
Stacia Sarwinski did not spend her summer on the field. Instead,
she had the unique opportunity to travel to Hong Kong as part of
the Asia Institute for Political Economy.

The AIPE is an academic program designed to promote discussions
of political economy, analyze and debate issues of economics,
global trade and economic developments with a group of students,
well-known professors, and notable guest lecturers. The Institute's
curriculum enables students to apply the concepts of international
political economy covered during the course to current issues in
their own countries. For three weeks, students attend classes,
interact with speakers, and attend special events to engage in an
educational, cultural, and social exchange.

“I saw pictures from Jess Anderson, who played volleyball
here, when she went to Greece and I really wanted to do something
like that,” Sarwinski explained of how she garnered interest
in AIPE. “I started looking into the program, and ended up
going to Hong Kong. I love learning, I’m a nerd, so I was
very excited to learn how other nations work and gather other
viewpoints from around the world.”

“The classes are very westernized in a sense that it is
supposed to be a discussion-style as opposed to just a lecture.
Being able to hear the perspectives of students from all across
Asia was an incredible experience.”

During her experience, Sarwinski got to experience Hong
Kong’s cosmopolitan society and get a taste of other cultures
from around the globe.

“The program consisted of 70-80 students from all over -
Indonesia, Burma, South Korea, Vietnam, United States, China, and
Cambodia just to name a few. My roommate was from Thailand and I
loved being able to learn more about her culture and teach her
about mine.”

As you probably would have guessed, Sarwinski also got the
chance to observe and try some things she may never would in her
hometown Grove, Oklahoma.

“Some of their habits are much different than ours
–they don’t drink much coffee and they do not like to
be in the sun. I’m rolling up my sleeves trying to get a tan
and they were doing everything they could to stay out of the
sun,” Sarwinski said with a laugh. “Everyone else
carries umbrellas and has sunscreen on at all times.”

“The food was real interesting too. My roommate handed me
a full fish and told me that I had to eat it. I did and it was
good. You had to get past the fact that there were actual eyes on
it, but after that it was good. I told myself I wouldn’t ask
about the food while I was there. If I liked it, I liked it. If I
didn’t, I didn’t.”

Inside the classroom, Sarwinski was able to extend her
government studies from here at the Academy and hear diverse
outlooks from her classmates and share some of her own.

“They were surprised that we Americans would acknowledge
the fact that there are flaws in our government. They thought we
would say it is perfect. But it was cool to hear that other
counties are striving to make their governments similar to ours. We
also had a class on civil military relations, which was really
interesting to see that military plays a larger role in their
government.”

Sarwinski has now returned to the Academy and plans to graduate
in May, hopefully with another NEWMAC title under her belt.

Last season, she started 46 games and hit seven homers and drove in
29 runs as the Bears made their fourth straight trip to the NCAA
tournament.

“Obviously we want to go back to the NCAA tournament and
we have a lot of great freshman who are joining the team. We also
need to find our new identity. Obviously, [2012 graduate and NFCA
All-America] Hayley Feindel is an incredible player and we
don’t want to push anyone to fill her shoes –
that’s not possible. Just figure out what works for us, set
realistic goals, achieve them, and go out and have fun. “

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